Who Designed Alice's Colorful Dress In 'Through The Looking Glass'? She's A Total Pro

Time is not running out; you can still catch Alice’s latest
adventure in Wonderland on the big screen. Alice
Through the Looking Glass is in theaters now and it is just as psychedelic
and whimsical as it’s predecessor. The fantasy backdrops and production design
are magical, no element was overlooked in the film’s immersive world, including
the costumes. They are to die for; The entire film is basically a haute couture
runway show. And while watching in the theater, many were likely dying to know who
designed Alice’s colorful dress in Alice
Through the Looking Glass.

Alice’s look is intricate with a mandarin
collar, embroidered purple, green and orange fabric, and stunning small details
like velvet buttons running down the sleeves. The mastermind behind the look,
and all of the film’s fanciful costumes, is none other than veteran costume
designer Colleen Atwood. She is returning to the Alice franchise after winning an Oscar for her work on the firstfilm, Alice in Wonderland, and her work in this film is just as
impressive.

Colleen Atwood is definitely a costume queen. She’s won two more
golden statuettes for her work on Memoirs
of a Geisha and the musical film Chicago.
She’s designed
costumes for almost every Tim Burton film, including Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy
Hollow, Big Fish and the upcoming
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar
Children. The 68-year-old is also the brain behind the costumes for the
upcoming Harry Potter film: Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them.
Atwood doesn’t limit her designs to the big screen either: She’s created costumes for television
series Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl.

Now, she’s back in fantastical Wonderland serving up some
more lavish looks worthy of Lewis Carrol himself. “My job is fascinating
because I have the opportunity to create
new worlds from different times and perspectives,” Atwood said in a
statement released by Disney.

For Alice’s main look in the film, the designer looked to
John Tenniel’s illustrations from Lewis Carrol’s original editions for
inspiration. She also researched Japanese looks from the 1980s to get a handle
on their specific structure and designs. “I think everybody nowadays
cross-pollinates in the media world that we live in,” Atwood said of her design
inspirations. Then, she had to figure out how to make her ideas come to
fruition.

“We needed yards and yards of vintage-looking fabric for Alice’s
Chinese-influenced costume,” Atwood said. “But we weren’t going to be able
to find that anywhere (and even if we did, vintage fabric is very fragile.” Knowing
this, she had to figure out a way around this little hiccup—which she did by
customizing her own fabric. “The textile department hand embroidered 70 yards
of basic blue silk to create the look we wanted.” Now if I could just get a
textile department to customize looks for me, I’d never have to leave a mall
disappointed again.

The trick about Alice’s
dress in the film, it’s actually not a dress at all. Atwood disguised a
pair of paints under the dress for practicality. “As a designer,” Atwood mused,
“you have to solve a lot of problems. Even thought people are wearing
clothes that are supposed to look beautiful, they’ll have to do all kinds
of things.”

Mia Wasikowska, who plays the titular Alice, appreciated Atwood’s
attention to detail when getting into characters. “I think [costumes are]
especially important on a film like this,” the actress told The Chicago Sun-Times. “Because you are
in a bit of a void with so much of the film shot against green screens. The
costumes are the first thing that give you a sense of where you are.”

For Atwood, the magic of her career comes from drawing on
the characters for inspiration and using hair and makeup to tell the story.

“Costumes, hair and
makeup can tell you instantly, or at least give you a larger perception of
who a character is,” the designer told BBC
News in 2003. “It’s the first impression that you have of the character
before they open their mouth,” she continued. “It really does establish who
they are.”

Once those impressions are set, the costumes can help ground
the audience in a fictional world as whimsical as Wonderland. “Each audience
brings their own imagination of reference to what they see,” Atwood told Australian
magazine Grazia. “So as designers we
have to create a world with which the audience connects. They have to believe in
the characters and relate to them emotionally.”

It looks like Atwood achieved her goal with Alice Through the Looking Glass. The extravagant
costumes she created for Alice are
sure to transport audience members right into Wonderland.